"Ask aloud," said the man, retreating, "for what you want." He feared that he should be suspected of some secret conspiracy with the king.
"I am hungry," said Louis XVI., "and ask for a piece of your bread."
"Divide it with me," said the man. "It is a Spartan breakfast. If I had a root I would give you half."
The king entered the carriage eating his crust. The same cavalcade as in the morning preceded and accompanied him. The same crowds thronged the streets and every point of observation. A few brutal wretches, insulting helplessness, shouted Vive la Révolution! and now and then a stanza of the Marseillaise Hymn fell painfully upon his ear. Chambon, the mayor, and Chaumette, the public prosecutor, were in the carriage with the king. Louis, having eaten as much of the half loaf of bread as he needed, had still a fragment in his hand.
"What shall I do with it?" inquired the simple-hearted monarch. Chaumette relieved him of his embarrassment by tossing it out of the window.
"Ah," said the king, "it is a pity to throw bread away when it is so dear."
"True," replied Chaumette; "my grandmother used to say to me, 'Little boy, never waste a crumb of bread; you can not make one.'"[381]
"Monsieur Chaumette," Louis rejoined, "your grandmother appears to me to have been a woman of great good sense."
It was half-past six o'clock, and the gloom of night enveloped the Temple, when Louis was again conducted up the stairs of the tower to his dismal cell. He piteously implored permission again to see his family. But Chambon dared not grant his request in disobedience to the commands of the Commune.
The most frivolous things often develop character. It is on record that the toils and griefs of the day had not impaired the appetite of the king, and that he ate for supper that night "six cutlets, a considerable portion of a fowl, two eggs, and drank two glasses of white wine and one of Alicante wine, and forthwith went to bed."[382]